Curse of the Golden Flower
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: December 21, 2006 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
70
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 32 Critic Reviews
Positive:
23
Mixed:
8
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
TimeRichard Corliss
This is high, and high-wire, melodrama. It's less soap opera than grand opera, where matters of love and death are played at a perfect fever pitch. And grand this Golden Flower is. Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
It's a work by cinematic geniuses that reveals beauty and terror in a long-ago time with a virtuoso intensity. You won't soon forget its mad, lovely sights and sounds. Read full review
100
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
A dazzling costume epic, a spectacle for the eyes and for the soul. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKevin Thomas
A period spectacle, steeped in awesome splendor and lethal palace intrigue, it climaxes in a stupendous battle scene and epic tragedy. Read full review
90
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
Another remarkable chapter in the career of Asia's most important living filmmaker. After "Pan's Labyrinth," this is the movie to see this season. Read full review
90
Washington PostStephen Hunter
Zhang Yimou's Curse of the Golden Flower is a kind of feast, an over-the-top, all-stops-pulled-out lollapalooza that means to play kitschy and grand at once. Read full review
88
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
It's a lavish entertainment that revels in lurid colors and yet more lurid emotions. Read full review
80
The New York TimesJeannette Catsoulis
Since his debut in 1987 with "Red Sorghum" Mr. Zhang has made more controlled films but never one that's more fun. With Curse of the Golden Flower he aims for Shakespeare and winds up with Jacqueline Susann. And a good thing too. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Exhaustingly action-packed. Read full review
75
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
It's more theatrical pageant than action movie, with the showy but rudimentary martial-arts action coming off like just another ritual with the players going through the motions. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia Puig
The Curse of the Golden Flower is the year's most operatic and visually lavish film. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Director Zhang Yimou's ambitious attempt to blend martial arts action with Shakespearean melodrama. It's not a perfect marriage but it offers two hours of solidly over-the-top entertainment featuring incredible visuals and powerful performances by international icons Gong Li and Chow Yun Fat. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
Chinese director Zhang Yimou has made some of the most beautiful movies of the last 20 years, and with his latest, Curse of the Golden Flower, he has also made one of the most deliciously nutty. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleRuthe Stein
Like a soap opera, but most of what glitters is gold. Read full review
75
PremiereStephen Saito
Action fans might find the film's first half somewhat of a slog to sit through because of its carefully honed exposition, while those used to Zhang's dialogue-heavy dramas are sure to be surprised by the film's brutal second half where blood spurts more than the words. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter Travers
The final effect is stunning, but also sadly impersonal. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
There are fine actors at work here. Chow is quiet and cunning, Gong Li is haughty and cold-eyed, Chen Jin is sturdy as a ghost who appears out of the past, and Gin Junjie is vividly bratty as the youngest, and most underappreciated, prince. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldPeter Debruge
But as Western analogies go, Curse achieves an emotional fervor more in keeping with ancient Greek mythology than Elizabethan theater. Read full review
70
Village VoiceRob Nelson
Like his "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers," Zhang Yimou's third global-market gigaproduction makes little sense in narrative terms even after two screenings, but the sets, costumes, and cinematography are so intoxicating that it doesn't much matter. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
Few filmmakers could produce so grand a spectacle, but Zhang used to be good for more than just eye candy. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Curse of the Golden Flower is a watchable soap opera, but its marching-band martial-arts scenes are little more than weakly staged retreads of the ones in Zhang's "Hero." Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
This colour-drunk, sumptuous late Tang Dynasty (928 AD) drama is huge on spectacle but as devoid of delight as a Cecil B. DeMille biblical epic. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
As easy as this movie is to watch, it's artificially flavored. "Golden Flower" runs on crocodile tears and corn-syrup blood. Read full review
60
VarietyRobert Koehler
Zhang Yimou's strangest and most troubled film, abounds in hysterical, mannered Tang Dynasty-era palace intrigue and dehumanized CGI battle sequences. Read full review
60
L.A. WeeklyDavid Chute
In the end, Curse also looks alarmingly like a dry run for the opening and closing ceremonies Zhang has been hired to direct for the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008. Read full review
60
EmpireIan Nathan
Imagine "The Lion In Winter" set at a Kylie gig. You can have too much of a good thing, but it is a good thing. Read full review
50
New York PostV.A. Musetto
Curse of the Golden Flower could also be called "Curse of 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.' " In other words, it is yet another attempt to cash in on the success of Ang Lee's 2000 martial-arts epic, which will go down in the history books as one of the most overrated films of the decade. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
The movie has plenty to engage one's interest but little to sustain it. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleJosh Rosenblatt
To question that this movie is a visual feast would be an act of real cynicism. But as the old Chinese proverb goes, "Gold and jade on the outside, rot and decay on the inside." Read full review
50
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
In Curse of the Golden Flower, Zhang Yimou tries to top the breathtaking poetic spectacle of his masterpiece, "House of Flying Daggers," and instead plummets into self-parody. Read full review
50
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
I can say only three good things about his latest martial arts picture, the incoherent The Curse of the Golden Flower: 1) Gong Li deserves better roles, 2) The costumes are astonishingly beautiful, and 3) Ummm...wow, how about those costumes! Read full review
30
Film ThreatPhil Hall
Zhang Yimou is seriously off his game with the utterly ridiculous Curse of the Golden Flower, a new epic that feels like "Hero" meets "The Lion in Winter" meets "Peyton Place." The film is worthless as a serious work of art, but it may offer the jaded viewer a surplus source of MST3K-inspired wisecracks. Read full review
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